A billboard posted on highway 175 in Southeast Dallas, TX last week has stirred up some controversy among commuters.
“ABORTION is not healthcare. It HURTS women and MURDERS their BABIES,” the billboard reads.
The sign is being sponsored by the National Black Pro-Life Coalition which has posted other signs similar to this one across the country.
“Family is strength, marriage is between one man and one woman, every child deserves birth and should be protected by love and by law,” the coalition’s website reads.
Stephen Broden, who founded the coalition in 2008 and is pastor of Fair Park Fellowship in Dallas told reporters Wednesday he hopes it will bring an end to abortion among the black population.
He said the coalition is “Bringing information and education in order to activate the community against this scourge that is happening in our community.”
In May, two pro-life groups in Cleveland, OH became concerned when they began to see “Abortion is a blessing” billboards posted in minority neighborhoods.
The Radiance Foundation and the Coalition of Life Cleveland responded by posting their own signs with a pro-life message: “Abortion is fake feminism,” and “Abortion is systemic racism.”
Citing a 2012 study by Protecting Black Life, the Life Issues Institute reports that in recent years, Planned Parenthood has “accelerated this targeting of minorities near its 25 new abortion mega-centers."
“With a current death of over 800 black babies per day, abortion has killed an estimated 17 million Black babies since 1973, a substantial loss to a Black population that numbers only 42 million. The long-term toll of this tragedy on the Black community and indeed, on all humanity, is immeasurable.”
Founder and president of CURE (Center for Urban Renewal and Education) Star Parker wrote in May that “government ‘family planning’ is really an insidious, pernicious kind of racism.”
“It’s not about improving the quality of life, but rather it is about discouraging black women, and other poor women, from having children and encouraging them to abort their pregnancies,” she said.
“The collateral damage has been the collapse of the black family… black women should be getting their ‘family planning’ guidance from their pastor, not from government bureaucrats.”
Broden also said he hopes to see Judge Brett Kavanaugh approved to replace retired justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.
“I’m hopeful that he will be approved,” Broden said of President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee, “and I believe the issue should come before the Supreme Court.”
Critics warn that in light of Kavanaugh’s nomination, Roe v. Wade may soon be overturned.
“Judge Kavanaugh’s record, his conservative backers, and the President who nominated him make it crystal clear: if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court, he will work to overturn Roe,” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wrote Tuesday.
“When I was a girl growing up in Oklahoma, we all heard the stories of women bleeding to death and dying of infections from illegal abortions," she said. "Overturning Roe would put women’s lives at stake.”